Sound Off

Published
12:00 am CDT, Friday, June 13, 2008

With gasoline at an all-time high, I hope people read the article about the EPA and ConocoPhillips refinery in Wood River. This is one reason gasoline is so high. The EPA wants to shut down all exploration and build new refineries.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to have the Taser used on a police officer now and then, just so they could see how it felt? I'm sure there wouldn't be any more deaths. If they used it twice on a person, let it be used twice on the officer.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Many law enforcement agencies in Illinois, including the Alton Police Department, require their officers to be shocked with a Taser at least once during their training in the use of the devices.

I disagree with the person who stated that names of arrests shouldn't be printed, because they would get over the "bad kid stage and grow up to be a law-abiding citizen." "A bad kid stage" is about the nicest thing you could say about them. I have a child who is 28 and started drinking and smoking marijuana in her freshman year of high school. How many years does it take to outgrow?

I found Jim Kulp's column was interesting about Obama and that a president is who he is surrounded by. Obama is surrounded by a racist pastor, a domestic terrorist, and he is a product of the Richard Daley Jr. political machine of Chicago. If that is his argument why Obama should be president, I have to disagree with him. That was a good reason not to vote for him for president.

I get a laugh reading Sound Off about the people complaining about the police chief, mayor and all those in charge of the communities around us. I'm sure 99 percent of the people complaining are sitting around on their duff and not doing anything to help their community. They just like to sit around and complain. This is true of just about any organization. About 10 percent of the people are willing to pull the load, and 90 percent want to sit around and complain about it, because they don't want to get off their duff.

Talk about small-town hypocrisy, when a city band that is too old and does not march to say that the school band cannot march in a Memorial Day parade because they are not union. Shame on them.